After AOL and Time Warner got together, they took over EMI.

Think not only of Content. All of Ted Turner's holdings, including CNN, but TimeWarner's movies, books, music, cartoons--Bugs Bunny and his friends--and EMI's music and entertainment holdings. Think also Conduit. The wire that brings it all to you.

You won't get a choice of anything that lies outsize their, admitedly, sizable domain. Will they supply anything that won't make them money??

And if it doesn't make them money, will they allow it to be distributed on their ISP?

Dial-up, the way the internet grew up, allowed the stuff at the ends, the many ends of the wire. If some corporate entity controls the whole wire, totally unregulated, like AT&T did, where is the competition, all you free enterprise capitalists?

Where is the competition is software if there is one big guy on the block, with an even bigger club? If indeed that is the way anything innovative ever really gets started? Does anyone remember ARPANet?